Lowe predicts 'phenomenal' second year for Stroll

Williams technical director Paddy Lowe has praised Lance Stroll for his performances last season, but has predicted a 'phenomenal' second campaign for the young Canadian alongside Sergey Sirotkin in what is the youngest driving duo on the grid for the upcoming 2018 schedule.

Last season Stroll became the youngest driver ever front-row starter at the Italian Grand Prix and was also the only driver to claim a podium spot who was not employed by Mercedes, Ferrari, or Red Bull.

Lowe is expecting even more this time around.

“I think that Lance will approach his second season in a completely different place to his first,” Lowe told ESPN.

“He came in very young, 18 years old, a very new environment, new challenge, it’s a huge amount of information to manage and use in the intense environment of Formula One racing.

“So I think at his second season he’ll be so much better off and a year older, a year at that age is a really big step. People do keep forgetting how young Lance is.

“I think we’ve got all the hope and the promise he can have a phenomenal second year and keep building a terrific career in Formula One.”

Lowe is full of praise for the way that Stroll conducted himself last campaign, and thinks that the experiences in his maiden year with Williams will serve him very well for developing more in 2018.

“He knows all the tracks, he knows his way around, so he can be hugely more confident and build on the things he did last year, which were already some great successes, some very notable statistics," Low continued.

“My favourite, the one less talked about, is his first-lap performance. I had that feeling all year, just objectively, that he was looking really strong in that aspect but I was pleased to see the formal calculation that he’d achieved the most overtakes in lap one confirmed that.

“It’s a terrific statistic, as we know there are many drivers who can get a great grid spot and then throw it away at the first corner in silly incidents. Lance has shown himself able to fight and yet not step over the line and throw it all away.”